“The price of labour, in 1895, for cutting cane, etc., before the insurrection commenced, varied from fourteen dollars to twenty dollars per month, Spanish gold. This has fallen off to from twelve dollars to fifteen dollars, Spanish silver, paid during the past crop for the same labour—in American gold about fifty-five per cent. of this. The maintenance per month per man is nine dollars, Spanish gold. This fall in wages was necessitated by the fall in the price of sugar, and by the fact that but few plantations in the neighbourhood were able to continue working.”
Labour seeking employment in Cuba must face these conditions. That the field will prove sufficiently attractive to tempt immigration in large numbers, even from the poorer sections of Europe, is doubtful. Still, with more prosperous times, the Canary Islanders may try their fortunes in the future as they have tried them successfully in the past; and so with Italians, Spaniards, South and Central Americans, and even the Southern negro of the United States, despite the fact, as stated above, that the American negro will not come to Cuba because the work is too hard and the food and accommodations too poor. But the American negro will, unwittingly, no doubt be the pioneer of a new labour era in Cuba. With the coming of the new order and new people, will come higher ideas of labour, and that which has ennobled labour in the United States will have its elevating influence among the labouring people of Cuba. Herding labourers in barracones like so many cattle, sleeping them, feeding them, bathing them, with less care than is shown to fine cattle, ruling them with whip and spur, making no provision or allowing no time for their mental or moral improvement, regarding them merely as so much live stock, but of less value than cattle, because when too old to work they cannot be slaughtered and eaten, it is small wonder that the crying need of the sugar-planter for two centuries has been sufficient and efficient labour. When the planter, under the newer influences which shall soon prevail, learns that by education, by the adoption and enforcement of sanitary regulations, by the establishment of homes, by the observance of the decent amenities of life, by the liberalising of religious belief, by the recognition of human rights, and by the general uplifting of the sentiment of work, a sufficiency of labour may be easily secured, and its efficiency guaranteed, the problem so long unsolved will be made as clear as day, and Cuba will enter an era of prosperity for all classes that will astonish and attract the world.
There is at this time a steady increase in the demand for labour on plantations and, in Santiago Province, for the mines. While in Cuba the author received one cable despatch calling for fifteen hundred labourers for the mines, while three large planters stood ready, among them, to employ a thousand men to work in the sugar fields. In the neighbourhood of the sugar plantations all the able-bodied men had either been killed in battle, died of disease and starvation, or were still in a state of practical destitution, hidden away in the insurgent camps. Those who offered themselves for employment were, as a rule, too weak to endure the hard labour. Three years of privations and lack of food had destroyed their stamina. To be sure, there is surplus labour in Havana,—able-bodied labour,—but those who applied there had no means of transportation to the localities where they could obtain work. Through a suggestion made by the writer to an enterprising American concern, four hundred of these Havana labourers were sent to Santiago. It is estimated that at least three thousand additional labourers could be well employed in these mines at once, if it were possible to send them from the spots where starvation stares them in the face to the localities where work can be obtained for those able to endure, as already indicated, the hardest toil under trying climatic conditions. Many Spanish soldiers desire to remain in the Island. They have formed alliances in Cuba; some of them have married and have families there. These men have come before American officials and entreated them to aid in finding them employment of some kind, either as Civil Guards, in the mines, or on the plantations. As a rule they make industrious and faithful labourers. Attention is called to an extract from a letter written by a prominent business man of Havana,—the man, in fact, who in October was employed to send the four hundred labourers from that city to Santiago:
“I advertised for labourers in the Santiago mines in our principal newspapers, and, in consequence, have had for the last three days at least one hundred and twenty men calling at my office for situations. They are willing to accept the price offered, but not one of them can pay the passage from this port to Santiago.
“Lots of soldiers, lots of labourers, many of whom have already worked in the Santiago mines and know all about the work, living, and everything else, but were taken away from there as guerrillas, volunteers, and soldiers of some kind, are willing to go; but, as you will understand, the people here have been without work and the soldiers without any pay, and therefore nobody can pay the passage.
“While I have been writing these lines several men have called on me, but it is the same thing over and over again; they need work, and are willing to work, but they have not got one cent to save their souls.”
It is believed this indicates clearly and without exaggeration the present conditions in Havana as regards would-be labourers and their suffering for want of work. During fifteen years’ experience in operating iron mines in Cuba, those who know say, the labour question there has always been the unsolved problem, as never during that time have they been able fully to supply their wants in this direction. If the number of labourers has not in normal times been sufficient to satisfy the requirements of all industries in Cuba, how much will it fall short under the new conditions? The only hope for the renewal of prosperity in the Island is, first, the rehabilitation of the sugar industry; second, a revival of work on the tobacco plantations; and third, a full complement of men in the mining districts. These industries are the basis of the prosperity of the Island. A better distribution of labour will aid somewhat, and if this is accomplished intelligently by the United States Government, employment can be found for thousands whose presence in Havana without work is a menace to the city. It should be borne in mind that the Cuban harvest is in the winter months, and therefore plans should at once be inaugurated by which those who want work can be immediately brought to those anxious to give them employment. A small expenditure of money in this direction now will save a large expenditure in the future in some other and less desirable ways.
It is useless to try to create new industries until the old and strong industries of the Island are re-established. If it is difficult, after the Spanish soldiers leave, to secure the necessary labour for the plantations, producing, as they will this year, a maximum of 400,000 tons of sugar for export, where are the labourers coming from to produce the high-water mark of 1,100,000 tons of sugar? The process of industrial reconstruction will necessarily be slow and depend in a large degree upon the stability of the Government and the rapidity with which the people settle down to work. There is no possibility, however, of a surplus labour supply. Work can be found for all capable and willing to perform hard labour now that the affairs of the Island have passed into the hands of the United States military authorities and the new customs tariff has gone into force. From this time the work of repairing the dismantled sugar plantations should go forward and thousands of labourers will be required. Whatever may be the future of Cuba, the present must be provided for and life and property and the right to labour be protected.
The disposal of the insurgent troops is so intimately interwoven with the labour problem that it is difficult to separate the two. Some of the insurgent troops should be, and probably will be, utilised as Civil Guards, supplementing the United States forces; but those who are not needed for this purpose should be systematically aided as far as possible in any endeavours they may make to secure work. Men with hardly clothes to cover their nakedness, who have existed for three years on a diet that would kill the ordinary American labourer in three weeks, and who have practically foraged for their daily existence, must be helped a little before they can stand alone—helped at least to the extent of food and raiment and transportation to the locality where there is work in abundance.
Lastly, in this connection, the need of homes in Cuba is one of the most pressing. The condition of those who labour on the plantations is truly deplorable. They literally have none of the necessities of civilisation. A complete state of savagery would be preferable to the condition of those employed on the sugar estates, who toil from early sunrise to sunset on rations of the plainest sort, and live in huts built of the bark of palm trees and thatched with the palm leaf.